Alternatives to the squat and bench press?

[Benji1]

Hey all, my name's Ben. I'm 21 years old, male, 6 foot, 105kg (around 230 pounds) and looking to drop to at least 90kg in the short term. I've been reading this forum for a solid week now, and have managed to glean a much greater understanding of the role of nutrition and exercise in weight loss: but there's one thing I'm struggling with, and that's incorporating sufficient resistance training into my schedule.

I'm a fairly big guy, and the last thing I want to do is eat away at what muscle mass I have while aiming for around ~2-2400 calories a day. The posts by Steve in particular about the importance of resistance training to maintain muscles were enlightening, but now I'm a little worried. The problem is that it's financially impossible for me to get a gym membership/pay for daily visits at this point in time: things should get better in a month or so, with a lot of work coming up before Christmas, but until then the gym is off-limits. From what I've read, it seems that doing the four big compound exercises (squats, bench presses, deadlifts and overhead presses) are ideal for a novice to maintain, and I'm wondering if there are any substitutions.

I have a bit of equipment: one (very old) 20kg barbell with about 50kg of weights, and two adjustable weight dumbbells at ~15kg each. I have nothing here at home that I can use as a substitute for a power rack, meaning that if I want to squat any substantial amount of weight with the barbell I first need to clear the bar over my head: not exactly a fun option. Nor do I have anything to really bench on, unless you can use the floor. Deadlifts and presses aren't as much of a problem, presses especially since the dumbbells provide enough resistance atm, so its finding a replacement/alternative exercise for the squat and bench press that I'm keen on.

Routine-wise, I'm aiming for the kind of novice-centric split Steve mentioned in the 'Basic Lifts' thread:

Day 1:

Squat -- 3x5
Bench Press -- 3x5
Chin-ups -- **

Day 2:

Squat -- 3x5
Overhead Press -- 3x5
Deadlift -- 1x5

Day 3:

Squat -- 3x5
Bench Press -- 3x5
Pull-ups -- **

Which, obviously, features squats and presses as the critical exercises.
If anyone can recommend any (equipment agnostic, able to perform at home) exercises that offer any similar benefit as the squat and bench press, I'd be most appreciative. Alternatively, would it be more advantageous to run counter to the advice in Steve's thread and do isolation work with the dumbbells instead? Bear in mind this is all an interim solution: I will inevitably get a gym membership, but I don't want that to get in the way of my weight loss journey.

And if any of these questions are stupid, noobish, or have been asked countless times before, I apologise. I've scoured the forums up and down to try and find anyone with a similar problem and come up with nothing. Any help is welcome!

Thanks in advance,
Ben

 

[KaraCooks]

Ben - good questions. I'd suggest you PM Steve directly and give him a link to this post. He often doesn't see all the posts but I know this is the kind of thing he's happy to answer.

 

[Steve]

Hey Ben -

I received your PM, so here I am.

Thanks for being so descriptive with your post. I can tell you've spent the time to read around a bit, which is very much appreciated.

First let me say this:

At 6' and 230 lbs, you're carrying around a relatively large dose of body fat. Sure, you're not HUGE but that's beside the point. The point is, when there's a hefty portion of body fat available... the chances of losing appreciable muscle mass are quite slim.

Sounds like you're going to make it into the gym come the end of the year - so technically you're sweating a month or two of suboptimal weight training. In the grand scheme of things given your stats, I can tell you you're worrying over nothing.

With that out of the way, there are certainly some things you can do with the equipment you have at your disposal.

The list includes:

- one (very old) 20kg barbell

- about 50kg of weights

- two adjustable weight dumbbells at ~15kg each.

If I were you I'd most likely do something like:

Day 1:





Day 2:

Pushups


Day 3:



Barbell Row

***

A few notes:

1. If you're not strong enough to deadlift with full plates, you might opt for Romanian Dead Lifts or elevating the bar with anything you have at your disposal. Going anything less than 45 lbs plates on each side of the bar puts the bar too low to the floor for proper mechanics.

2. You can do elevated split squats using a chair. This exercise is fantastic for building unilateral strength and doesn't require a large load at all since we're much weaker doing unilateral work opposed to bilateral work. Just remember that your front leg is the one that should be doing most of the work.

3. Box Squats you can do on the corner of a chest, chair, or whatever. You can also adjust the height by stacking books, plates, or whatever. Once you're competent in the movement you can load it by holding DBs how we show in the vid, holding a weight plate to your chest, etc.

4. Floor presses can be done with DB or a BB. If your DBs are too light for floor presses, use the bar. It can be a bit tricky to get the bar in the right positioning but if you're not using huge weights, it's certainly doable. I'd simply slide my legs under the bar and sort of boost the bar upward with my thighs while pulling with my arms while simultaneously laying back. Like I said though, it really depends on the weight you're using. If this doesn't seem like a viable option, let me know.

Something like this, which certainly isn't written in stone, can hold you over to you're in the gym.

 

[Benji1]

Thanks so much Steve, exactly what I was after! I'll give them a go and see how it turns out.

 

[Steve]

No problem, you're welcome.

 

[Benji1]

Alrighty had a crack at the Day 2 split Steve posted (did deadlifts/overhead presses recently). To give him a break, here are a couple questions directed at anyone who happens to mosey on into this thread, copied from my diary:

1) How long should I 'rest' between sets? At the moment I'm letting the weight rest, moving around a little bit, stretching the muscle, maybe having a drink of water, but all up the rest is nearly always less than a minute. Should it be longer? If I have the energy to keep going does that mean the weight isn't challenging enough?

2) Is 3 sets of 5 reps sufficient for these exercises? Should I up my rep count according to how my body responds to the weight, or up the weight in every case?

3) Is there any danger of reaching early plateaus by starting off with a reasonable amount of weight on the bar/dumbbell? As long as I get the form of the exercise down ok, should I just go with what works? A classic example is with the ESS: I managed 3 sets of 5 without any trouble on my right leg @ 20kg, but on my left I had to drop down to 10kg for the second two sets, simply because my left leg was weaker. Should I have started with very light weights and done more reps to get the stability and uniformity required for that exercise? Next week I'm planning on using 10kg for both legs until I can get some balance between the legs, should I have done that from the start?

Pushups were ok, I tried to double the number of reps but didn't quite get there (2 sets of 10, one set of 5). Much more than a couple weeks ago! DB rows were surprisingly easy with the 10kg, I'll up it to 12.5 next time.

Oh yeah, and I don't know how I got this wrong, but the dumbells are 10kg each when balanced (9.4 according to my scale). Not that it matters: they still provide more than enough resistance for me in a lot of exercises at this point.

Looking forward to any replies,

Benji

 

[Steve]

1) How long should I 'rest' between sets? At the moment I'm letting the weight rest, moving around a little bit, stretching the muscle, maybe having a drink of water, but all up the rest is nearly always less than a minute. Should it be longer? If I have the energy to keep going does that mean the weight isn't challenging enough?

In this sort of training, I'll generally recommend resting between 60-120 seconds. The more challenging the weight is for you, the closer towards the longer end of that spectrum you should be.

But it's not a science.

We're training for strength gains, possibly hypertrophy, and certainly muscle maintenance. If you go longer in the rest department, you're not going to ruin things.

Going much shorter could screw some things up in that it could prevent you from lifting heavily enough to stimulate muscle maintenance. I'd say it's unlikely, but still something to watch out for.

This isn't a metabolic workout. It's a CNS-intensive workout.

Many people like to have their heart rates jack up and sweat to break whenever they exercise, which is just silly. Not all exercise triggers the same responses - for good reason.

2) Is 3 sets of 5 reps sufficient for these exercises?

Yes.

It's theorized that you can maintain strength/muscle using 1/3 of the volume you'd use for strength gains and muscle growth.

Optimal volume for the latter is about 30-60 reps per session, 2-3 sessions per week.

So for the former, you're in a good range.

That's not to say you can't toy around with rep ranges which will directly toy around with intensity (defined as % of 1rm).

For instance, you could make a heavy, light, and moderate day.

Heavy day might be something like 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps.

Light day might be something like 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.

Moderate day might be something like 4 sets of 8-10 reps.

Should I up my rep count according to how my body responds to the weight, or up the weight in every case?

I'd much sooner worry about weight on the bar than I did reps per set.

3) Is there any danger of reaching early plateaus by starting off with a reasonable amount of weight on the bar/dumbbell? As long as I get the form of the exercise down ok, should I just go with what works?

Overshooting intensity is a common problem.

In the early stages of a new program I like people to go on the conservative end. This allows them to practice movements without *too much* load. This way you don't have load screwing with the mechanics of the movement (the heavier one trains, the more sloppy they tend to get in the form department) and you don't have heavy loads on new movements... which tends to do bad things in the injury department.

If you feel that your form is spot on, don't worry so much about the loads lifted. Instead, worry about consistently progressing the weight on the bar.

For exercises calling on many joints and muscles, you might be able to jump up 10-15 lbs each step-up.

For smaller exercises, the step-up might be 1-5 lbs.

If you focus on progressively increasing the intensity (which doesn't have to be every single workout, just has to be done over time) you'll ensure continual adaptation and you'll eventually hit the threshold (if you're not there already) where you're lifting heavily enough to promote the adaptations we're after (strength/muscle gain/maintenance).

Hopefully that makes some sense.

A classic example is with the ESS: I managed 3 sets of 5 without any trouble on my right leg @ 20kg, but on my left I had to drop down to 10kg for the second two sets, simply because my left leg was weaker. Should I have started with very light weights and done more reps to get the stability and uniformity required for that exercise?

Depends.

If it's simply a matter of poor motor patterns, lock of balance/mobility, etc... more practice could be beneficial which would mean lighter weights and more reps.

If it's truly a strength imbalance... simply doing what you're doing will eventually work out the kinks.

Next week I'm planning on using 10kg for both legs until I can get some balance between the legs, should I have done that from the start?

I think this is a good idea.

Pushups were ok, I tried to double the number of reps but didn't quite get there (2 sets of 10, one set of 5). Much more than a couple weeks ago!

Nice work.

For the later sets where you're too fatigued to get the target reps... you can drop to a modified pushup at rep 5 for instance and reach your target reps that way.

DB rows were surprisingly easy with the 10kg, I'll up it to 12.5 next time.

Make sure you're squeezing each shoulder blade back and down. Pull with your elbow... not your hand. That cue typically triggers people to realize they need to be pulling with their shoulders and back more than their biceps.